


Beyond Good Neighbours

by afteriwake



Series: nongentorum [67]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Established Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Fluff, Matchmaking, Molly Hooper Appreciation Week 2017, Molly's Thoughts, Picnic, Romantic Fluff, Romantic History, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Kissing, poetry discussion, toby the cat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:58:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: If you had asked her at the start of term if her life would be like this, if her life would be this good, she would have laughed in your face. Oh, how things change...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts), [bondiyang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bondiyang/gifts), [MissClaraOswinOswald](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissClaraOswinOswald/gifts).



> So this was inspired by a prompt **sideofrawr** to use the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost in a fic, but I was having trouble with it so I added it to a list of claims last year and it was claimed by **bondiyang** but I still couldn't figure out how to incorporate the poem. Then in January it went up for claiming _again_ and this time was claimed by **MissClaraOswinOswald** and _finally,_ I came up with this. I hope all of you enjoy it!

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Molly shook her head, even though it was in Sherlock’s lap. If she had been told at the start of the year that she would be a week from graduation with her medical degree, sitting under a tree enjoying a picnic lunch with Sherlock Holmes, soon to be graduate chemist, discussing her favourite poem with her head on his lap after being wined and dined with a picnic lunch of homemade food and some delicious bottled sangria, she’d never have believed it.

Hell, if you’d have told her at the beginning of the year she’d have been _happy_ , she’d probably have laughed in your face and told you to go to hell.

Her whole world had been flipped upside down by her father’s passing at the tail end of the last year’s term, and though it was hard to take the summer away to bury him and properly mourn she did. She almost hadn’t come back to uni, but her mother had encouraged her, saying she was so close to her dream. Bless her mother for holding off on saying “their dream,” even though they both knew her father had wanted her to follow in his footsteps at work at Barts, leading a new generation of bright, shining faces, even if she wanted to muck about in dead bodies to do so.

But it had been so achingly hard to come back, to put a smile on her face, to pretend her heart hadn’t shattered into a million pieces with her Rock of Gibraltar gone. Her dad had been more than just her father; he’d been her biggest supporter and her loudest cheerleader and now, all that was left was a void of silence in his place. A space too big to fill.

Or so she’d thought.

She didn’t know why, at least at first, but her neighbour had gone round to feed the cat that she fed at the window each night while she was out of the flat. He’d let himself in by picking her lock and introduced the cat she’d deemed Toby to a better quality cat food. Her second day back, there was a month’s supply waiting outside her door with the note “Your feline is picky.” He’d signed it, and she’d marched over to demand to know what nonsense he was talking about…

…and Toby was at his heels, looking for all the world like he was very content to be in Sherlock’s flat.

And, eventually, so was she.

They had spent years being neighbors, going to the same university on different tracks, and never once spoke, but a finicky little feline got them talking, and once he did they never seemed to stop. They talked about everything under the sun, and she was always eager to learn more. Just as he was eager to learn more about her, it seemed. She saw he was prickly with the rest of their neighbors, and his housekeeping skills could use some serious updating, but she liked him. She felt comfortable around him.

By December, she knew she loved him, much to her surprise. And when she was about to leave to go home to make sure her mum was okay, he told her in no uncertain terms, with a kiss that left her breathless, that he loved her in turn.

And things were well. Things were very well. Their future loomed, open and wide, and in a week they would no longer be tethered here. Freedom at last, thankfully. There would be fewer moments like this when the real world intruded, but at least now she could make the most of them.

“What part don’t you understand?” she asked.

“Why they mend the wall when nature tries to overtake it. I mean, the narrator has a point. They can mend that wall every year for nine hundred years and nature will still try and overtake it.”

Molly nodded. “Fair point. But sometimes, you simply need the wall to be good neighbors,” she said. “My father always quoted that poem to my neighbour when he would come around to the front of our house and give my father grief.”

Sherlock gave her a skeptical look. “Your family home is impeccably maintained.”

“My neighbour is an egotistical arse who feels he has the best house in the neighbourhood,” she said wryly. “My father would remind him we had a nice stone wall between our houses so he didn’t have to gaze upon us peons most of the time.”

Sherlock snorted out a laugh which made Molly laugh as well. “I think I would have liked your father,” he said.

“I know he would have liked you,” she said, reaching up to play with the collar of his shirt. “Though I think in our case, good fences did not make good neighbors. Or rather, locked doors and meddling cats.” She frowned. “I think I’m too tipsy to get the new saying right.”

He grinned down at her. “We are going to take Toby with us to London, aren’t we?” he asked, leaning down.

She nodded. “Definitely. Our matchmaker deserves all the spoiling he can get.” She grinned back up at him. “I do love you, Sherlock.”

“I love you too, Molly,” he said before kissing her. Yes, she had never expected any of this to happen, but she was certainly ever so glad it had.


End file.
